Trixie Update 101 (A Few Highlights)

The links to the images in the masthead are at the bottom of this page.

If you like data and you like babies, you’ll want to visit Metrics. If you like data and don’t like babies, you’ll definitely want to visit Metrics because then you’ll feel even better about your anti-baby ideology. Any story that contains numbers can be found here. Some of these also contain charts and graphs. A few are highlighted at the bottom of this page, or visit Metrics to see them all.

Want to learn more about your child’s daily patterns? Want to create your own visually striking charts and graphs? Now you can.Trixie Tracker Baby Tracking Software launched in March 2006. Try it out today!

A reader favorite is Milk Week. Did you ever pump? Or were you in charge of bottle feedings? You’ll enjoy looking back on our History of Milk. Planning to pump? Don’t be scared. It will work out.

The Trixie Picture of the Day (TPOD) is a pretty reliable weekday feature. Look for the “One Year Ago Today” feature that let’s you see how much Trixie has grown (if there’s an older photo available for that date.) There is also a calendar view where you can see a month’s worth of TPODs at a time. (this feature has been replaced by flickr)

When the topic turns to illness or disease, some readers may refer to a condition called BIDS. It stands for Baby-related Immune Deficiency Syndrome. BIDS was coined by Schaff, a longtime Trixie Update reader and friend, to describe the increased frequency of sickness in Jenn and me since Trixie was born. Read more about BIDS and see if you suffer from it.

Other acronyms used on the site are:

TPOD: Trixie Picture of the Day.

TTU: The Trixie Update. (The wisdom of including the word ‘the’ in an acronym is debatable, but at this point it seems to be a done deal. Sorry.)

Publishing Schedule
If you’re visiting for the first time, I (probably) know what you’re thinking. I know because over the past year I’ve seen the issue raised in hundreds of blogs, message boards and forums. It’s some variation of, “How does he have time to do that?” or even better, “He should really spend more time with his daughter.”

The answer to this question is that is doesn’t take a lot of time to maintain the site. It did take some effort in the beginning, but that’s back when I still had a lot of energy. (There’s no way I would start a site like this from scratch now.) The Trixie Telemetry section at the top of the homepage only takes a couple of seconds to update whether it’s recording a diaper or marking Trixie as waking up from a nap. The whole thing is automated and takes next to no effort.

Readers also add a lot to this site. There are thousands of insightful, humorous and heartfelt comments scattered throughout the these pages. If you comment on a story — no matter how old the story is — your comment shows up on the home page for everyone to see. I read all comments and try to respond to those that ask a direct question. I’ll also often just throw my two cents in. If you posted a funny comment and I didn’t respond, it probably means that it’s perfect, and I can’t add anything to it.